Gears of War Creator Cliff Bleszinski Says VR Need More “Real Games”

Gears of War Creator “Cliff Bleszinski” has shared his thought on the current VR landscape. In the Gamespot article, he states that there are lots of VR shovelwares right now, and no actual real games (well, not literally). And that’s part of the catch 22 issue where the publishers need a large install base to justify making a large scope VR games , but these VR games are needed to increase the install base.

He went on to cite 2 examples of ‘real VR games’: Epic’s Robo Recall (which was launched recently for free on the Oculus Store and receive heap praises), as well as Ubisoft’s Eagle Flight (which won awards at DICE 2017).

on Robo Recall:

“Yeah, it’s a wave shooter but, goddamn it looks good,” Bleszinski said. “The controls are perfect and they really knocked it out of the park. That’s the kind of stuff that needs to happen, as opposed to more friggin’ roller coasters and things like that. There’s also jump scare games that YouTubers want to do. So there’s a lot more to it, but there’s like six things right now that are really preventing VR from really exploding in a good way.”

on Eagle Flight:

“The story I like to tell people is when I did Eagle Flight and my wife was in the other room and I was just gushing making these kid sounds like, ‘he-he-he-he-he-he,’ and I handed her headset, and she was like, ‘Why’s it all wet?’ I’m like, ‘Because it moved me to tears.’ It’s like I’ve had that dream since I was six years old, of actually flying like an eagle.”

Cliff B believes that VR will become mainstream, but it will take time and will not happen soon.

“I think there’s enough people in Silicon Valley and beyond that have deep enough pockets to ride this out the long haul,” he said. “I think [Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg] saw the potential in Oculus in realizing like the first time I did touch demo and [Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey] was standing across from me as a VR ghost, even though he’s in the other room. That’s when it gets magical. If I could play catch with my niece in California, that’s pretty magical … but we’ve gotta start pushing through and working through it all.”

Check out the link to read the entire article. Cliff Bleszinski’s Boss Key current project is PC shooter “LawBreakers“, which will enters closed beta this week.